An editorial calendar is invaluable in ensuring up-to-date, well-organized, on-task content. But to make it work, you can't just use an Excel template you found via Google and call it a day. An effective editorial calendar, says Brain Traffic's Melissa Rach, has to be customized to match both the purpose and the prioritized particulars of your content. While it requires a bit of work up front -- and, as we wrote about earlier, an editorial … [Read more...]
Elements of Editorial Style for the Web
August 4, 2011 by
Last week, while sitting at Starbucks, I overheard a guy tell his friend, "Making websites is so easy these days. You just buy a template and move text around." I joked with Georgy about asking the guy to do a Meet Content guest post on "Cut-and-Paste Content Strategy." Although most people don't describe the process as being that easy, many do have an oversimplified understanding of what is involved in creating effective … [Read more...]
Building a Campus Content Group—In the Wild West
July 27, 2011 by
Many of us work at institutions without top-down content strategy and may be “lone rangers” when it comes to content at our respective schools or departments. It can even be lonely at the top (a.k.a. central administration) if we’re not in the loop with others around campus. But if we look beyond our own dusty saloons, we’ll see many folks just like us, trying to bring the rule of law to the wild west of content. The challenge—and … [Read more...]
Aligning Content Online and Offline
July 6, 2011 by
Traditionally, we have viewed offline and online experiences as two separate things — complementary, perhaps, but separate. Today, the distinctions between physical and digital are dissolving — campus events are experienced both from the audience and via the hashtag — revealing themselves to be two sides of the same experience. This begs the tough question: Are we aligned? On June 12 and 13, I delivered a presentation at Penn State Web … [Read more...]
Why Should We Care About Your Twitter Account?
June 10, 2011 by
One of the things we've learned about managing social media is that the sooner you begin planning your social media content strategy by asking "why?" the better off your plan will be in the long run. But while we may have done a good job of answering the "why?" question internally, have we done a good job of answering our audience's "why?" question: Why should I follow you? What will I get out of this? What content will you give me? What value … [Read more...]